An Annual Tradition: Baked Goodies Galore

        As a broke college student, it's become a tradition of mine to bake for my family instead of buy gifts. Often this ends up costing nearly as much as buying gifts would as my recipe book expands, but I think there's something to be said for a gift from the heart and made by hand. This year's gifts included: homemade kahlua (not pictured), oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (pictures 1-3), chocolate and peanut butter fudges (pictures 4 and 5), wheat-free peanut butter cookies (picture 6), and three different types of cake pop (pictures 7-9).

Creaming the butter and sugar
together for my first batch. I ended up
adding a bunch of brown sugar to the
recipe, which made the cookies softer.

It always helps to have a
handsome man around the
kitchen to assist. Especially
when baking for 30.

The finished product. They came out
a little thin, but very soft and chewy.

Stirring the initial ingredients for
fudge. From here you can add either
peanut butter or chocolate (or both).

Finished peanut butter fudge.
I found it sadly lacking in
peanut butter, next time I'll
be doubling the amount.

The batter for my grandma's wheat-
free peanut butter cookie recipe. It
consists of peanut butter, eggs, and
sugar. The cookies are amazing, if
a little sweet.

Cake pops in the pan before
application of sticks. I saw
this pan and had to give it a
shot. It works fairly well.

Allowing the pops to cool upright
makes the stick more secure. I used
a mixture of melted candy coating
and chocolate chips for frosting.

The finished product. I made
three flavors of cake pops:
chocolate fudge with a light
cocoa frosting, vanilla candy
cane cake with chocolate mint
frosting, and yellow cake with
eggnog and a white chocolate
vanilla frosting.

All in all, baking was a success this year. I think next time I'd use a little less brown sugar in the oatmeal cookies, though not much, to add a little more volume and take away just a touch of sweetness. The peanut butter fudge definitely needs twice the peanut butter, and the peanut butter cookies could use a bit less refined sugar. As for the cake pops, they came out pretty well for my first attempt and I'll continue to experiment with them; I think I'll aim for a little more moisture next time.